TEENAGERS under the age of consent should be given school lessons on the morning-after pill, a survey suggested last night.

As official figures showed Britain has the second-worst teenage preg-nancy rate in the world, researchers at Cardiff University found that school lessons on emergency contraception might help tackle the problem.

Health experts backed the call for better lessons on avoiding pregnancy but the idea got short shrift from school governors.

According to a report in the British Medical Journal 14 and 15-year-old teenagers who were given a single lesson in emergency contraception improved their knowledge but were not more likely to have sex.

The report said that while awareness of emergency contraception was high, school pupils were not aware that the morning-after pill could be taken at up to 72 hours after having sex.

It added, "The intervention significantly improved the proportion of boys and girls knowing the correct time limits for emergency contraception. The intervention did not change the pupils' sexual activity or use of emergency contraception."

Last night sexual health specialist Dr Olwen Williams, of Wrexham Maelor hospital, said it was significant that the lesson was given by a teacher rather than a health specialist.

Normally teachers fight shy of giving lessons on sexual health because they do not feel qualified enough to cover such sensitive topics.

But Dr Williams said speciallytrained teachers had succeeded in this case. "Teachers should be more involved in this sort of education as part of a multi-pronged approach," she said.

Wales has some of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe and around 40pc of 15-year-olds in this country say they have had sex.

But despite figures released by Unicef on Thursday which showed Britain's teen pregnancy rates remained high, schools remain unwilling to get more deeply involved in spreading the safe sex message.

Ultimately school governors are responsible for sexual health lessons in school. But Peter Griffin, chair of Governors Wales, said he remained unconvinced that more education in school about safe sex would send the right messages to teenagers.

"Encouraging sexually promiscuous activity by young people who are unable to take full responsibility for potential parenthood would not be acceptable," he said.

A spokeswoman for the National Assembly said it recognised good sex education could help reduce rates of teenage pregnancy. "Teaching about all aspects of contraception, including emergency contraception, is part of this process."